Connecting with God through poetic articulations of lived, embodied experience–engaging texts from the Revised Common Lectionary for Christian churches, other biblical and spiritual texts, and evocations of the divine in rituals and other public events–always accepting lived reality as a primary source of divine revelation and mystery.

worship

A Reflection for the Sixth Sunday after Easter, Year A

Worship at many temples, god of fossil fuel by Shell money at First National Bank sugar and fat by Dunkin’ Donuts country at Washington’s obelisk buff bodies by LA Fitness hard to stop bending the knee making offering when so many shrines and their gods beckon street corner after street corner mile by mile IHOP has more Sunday morning worshippers than St. John’s, First Baptist, and Trinity Lutheran together St. Walmart and Holy Costco compete across town lines of communicants approach the check-out altar awaiting blessing by swipe or insertion.

St. Paul would feel at home, so many monuments rise Athens-like, but Jesus might wonder if we can pause long enough to see God in the aisles or the eyes of credit card curates or understand the movement of love through those who stock shelves teach aerobics cook wait tables and drive-through windows

It takes courage to love when it’s not on the printed menu but we are not orphans, no place no time God is not.

About this poem . . . Paul’s commentary and caution to the Athenians, recorded in Acts, speaks from the aversion to idols grounded in the commandment given to Moses. It is easy to think that it is the Greeks or pagans of long ago who have idols, graven images. But there are many among us today. At the same time, these temples of commerce and more are also human gathering places, and God often shows up—probably is there all the time (as in Athens long ago).

Written for and Delivered at the
Interfaith Passover Seder
sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace – Metro DC Chapter
at Calvary Baptist Church, Washington, D.C.
March 19, 2017/5777

I join you tonight as I did last year in prayer and hope, as a queer Christian minister and theologian/poet, married to a beautiful Jewish man, member of Jewish Voice for Peace, Reform Temple, and an LGBTQI affirming, multi-racial Protestant church, citizen of this nation that still imprisons Native peoples on reservations and kills descendants of slaves on the streets for crimes of living while Red and/or Black, where plagues of ethnic, gender, religious, bodily, and sexual hates are often the center of public life, as they live and grow among some at or near the pinnacle of national leadership.

We are not alone in taking land, we know its ancient roots in Torah, and we know countless ones today who are displaced, unplaced, misplaced, replaced as were hundreds of thousands in the Nakba, just as we know that second class citizens live not only in prisons, ghettos, and reservations here but also on streets and in neighborhoods of Jerusalem, along with others who are citizens of no country confined to refugee camps, water-less deserts, and outposts under constant threat of dislocation, trying to live and breathe where once they were born and played as children, and grew to tend their flocks and orchards.

So as we gather in the midst of ugliness, fear, and othering, we claim our inheritance as people who cherish liberation, our own and that of others, knowing this day
like all others is made for us to wake up, grow up,
look up, act up, stand up, live up, speak up
so captives go free.

We gather in an ancient and honorable ritual
celebrating another time when people rose to be free,
and like them our words, songs, prayers, and food
prepare us and recommit us to march, to resist,
to claim the mantle bequeathed by Moses,
and Esther and Jeremiah, to speak truth to powers,
to say to modern princes: Let the people of Palestine breathe,
end the Occupation of their land, their homes, their minds—
and yes, well-funded overlords, free yourselves from the tangled webs
you create with ancient enmities and entitlements
creating more war, more chaos, more ugliness, more death.

We seek a new way, a time of milk and honey for all, when peace and justice glow in and through the golden dome of God for all the world. We shall do our part to make it so, knowing, believing, it is our divinely inspired mission, to join with many others here and there, to create the new Jerusalem, the new Israel, the new Palestine, the new USA, the new people there and here, everywhere, no longer living and walking in fear, no longer dispossessed, no longer forgotten, no longer denied entry, exit, jobs, housing, life, or dignity for being on the wrong side of one line, one wall, one gate, one identity, or another.

Reflection on Transfiguration Sunday, Year A

She began slowly, so softly we had to quiet ourselves to hear alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, and again, many repetitions as she mined the word-notes for all their life—

Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John
and led them up a high mountain by themselves—

the purity of her contralto caught us as she moved to Bless the Lord, O my soul, many more now singing and beginning to stand, arms in the air, and all that is within me, bless His holy name, her eyes begin to glisten—

And he was transfigured before them,
and his face shone like the sun,
and his clothes became dazzling white—

her voice stronger, He has done great things her face begins to glow, bless His holy name—

suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him—

then This Little Light of Mine, almost all of us on our feet, singing, tears of joy and thanks, I’m gonna let it shine, glow spreading face to face—

suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them,
and from the cloud a voice said,
“This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased;
listen to him!”—

I’m gonna let it shine, bodies swaying our collective gleam radiating through walls all the way to heaven and back, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

As the applause and tears and hugs roll across the sanctuary the preacher says, “Jesus told the disciples on that mountain, ‘get up, don’t be afraid,’ meaning living belongs to those who stand even when it is difficult, who rise not just in church but when we come down from holy highs, Spirit touching us deep as our bones and more, knowing sacred work begins when we stand where bodies are needed to say no to injustice, yes to justice, or both, to remind America First, to remind ourselves, God is first.”

About this poem . . . To our rationalist eyes and ears, the story of Jesus transfigured on the mountaintop can sound too much like Christian scripture writers trying to outdo, or at least, match the glow of Moses’ face or the divine blessing of Elijah. But such transfiguration, on a more human scale, happens fairly often, at least it seems so to me, when one of those truly holy gospel church moments begins to capture all within hearing distance, when a singer or choir and instrumentalists take us out of the room, certainly out of our seats, and we feel the gleam of heaven’s bright sun and stars not only on us but in us, not only shining on us but glowing out from us. And that is when we can get the courage to go forth and “god” (a wonderful verb) in the world.

Reflection in response to Proper 16, 14th Sunday after Pentecost, Year C (focus on Luke: 13:10-17)

The bent over woman stood up straight, praising God, when Jesus touched her, erasing her long disfigurement, and people in the synagogue rejoiced. Scholars agree Jesus did not violate halakhah, the compilation of Jewish law governing worship, even as Luke records objection by the synagogue leader. Rules often help communities to be strong, orderly, but leaders, not just in synagogues to be sure, can confuse order they want with order God wants— not always the same. When health, liberation, mercy, are at stake, as then, like now, the rules enabling those outcomes control. But do really follow those rules all the time? If we did, would health care and prisons be run for profit, would anyone be allowed to carry firearms in school, would we then allow God’s creation to be spoiled by greed, dictators to fire poison at their people, officers to shoot Black men just because they can, Palestinians to be denied their own true homeland?

vivacolorado.com

It is tempting to leave Jesus back there in synagogue, upending the claim of power by the leader, feeling all righteous, critical, about the leader then, instead of hearing our Lord here and now, saying about rules of today, Stop! Indeed laying holy hands on victims of health care and prison profit rules so they, and more importantly we, can stand straight and throw off the tyranny keeping them bent down. And he, then as now, weeping not only over Jerusalem— but also the earth despoiled by our careless selfishness, children at risk in school, brave citizens gassed by their own leaders, our streets war zones where peace officers shoot first, ask later— he touches us as he touched the crippled woman so that finally we can take his power, his love, his peace from the sanctuary where we too often embalm it into the world that too is bent over, crippled, crying out in pain, and need.

There is hope, yes, always hope, but its wealth cannot be shared if we do not follow him in breaking the rules of oppression and keeping rules that liberate. Jesus asks us to go to the hard places, and stand up.

About this poem…..The text does not say it, but the synagogue ruler was probably a Pharisee, and it is so easy to poke not only fun but also righteous judgment at them—forgetting our own Pharisaic ways, and our own resort to rules to keep order rather than freedom and liberation. This incident is not intended to be about people long ago so much as it is a caution to us. Can we overcome rules of today—stuff we breathe so much we cannot see its effect, like thinking “for profit” means better care, that authorities must know what they are doing, that guns save lives, that the survival of one people is more important than the survival of another?

A Reflection on Proper 11, 9th Sunday after Pentecost, Year C

Click here for biblical textsA leaky roof is a fearsome thing for a church causing not only water damage but spiritual damage too, as people focus on the building, money and contracts, possibly forgetting who and what is central; or maybe the damaged roof signifies a leak elsewhere, inability to keep all things in balance or a failure of people to invest enough of themselves to support the whole church. Of course, Christ is the one foundation, and the roof a very second-tier thing even though it is on top, because even if the roof falls in the church remains.

picssr.com

Maybe Jesus is showing Martha just that truth, suggesting hierarchy of value—it is not that dinner does not require preparation by us but it cannot replace or subsume the feeding of our souls. The most important hour at church is not the potluck nor is the building our center; indeed, if it is, as it seems to be for some, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Holy Parent will wonder where and who we are. And if our focus neglects the poor, the immigrant, the widow, too, if we feed only ourselves and our friends, then as Amos says, our feasts, like our roof, may be turned into mourning as for an only child, our songs into lamentations.

What we want, need, from the Holy One by whatever name we call, is Presence, as appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, so we can greet and offer refreshment, hospitality, listening; then we can hear what is intended for us, what we need; but if we focus first or only on the sagging, leaking roof, we can so easily miss the visit, like Jesus coming to our door and we mistake him for a door-to-door salesman, saying “Not today, thank you.” Abraham listened though he doubted Sarah could bear a son, but the key was his open arms and ears.

It is always that way. Do we welcome unexpected visits, do we listen even when we have work to do, or do we think God must conform to our schedule, priority, need, fear? I know I am so often Martha, and perhaps you, too; that does not make us bad people, it just means we will miss the best stuff, we will miss the icing and the cake, ice cream and candles too, and even the singing, maybe the whole party which is the gift of God for us all every day without end.

About this poem . . . . Jesus’ exchange with Martha always feels uncomfortable to me. I remember that someone has to make dinner, and do the dishes, etc. and it seems easy for Jesus, as a man in a society even more patriarchal than our own, to tell her to stop her chores—if she does not do these things, will the slaves do it, or will there be no dinner? But then I remember how often I complain about all the work I have to do, and how it becomes an excuse to skip meditation and prayer, and how often the busy-ness of church (and so much else) overwhelms my need to slow down and listen for the still, small voice wanting to break through easy, ordinary resistance.

Enough is enough calls out the pastor again, again, again, and the people respond in kind, round by round energy rising, filling the sanctuary, layers of meaning from shared history, older ones remembering Jim Crow, younger ones feeling the endless string of indignities, living while Black, all knowing that the latest brother gunned while down could have been their son, their husband, their friend, brother, neighbor, co-worker, and knowing it is not done, that after seven years they are amazed the President of the United States remains alive, while still victim of hate that spreads across the web, doubting his religion, even his birth, sure that a Black man cannot be trusted to do more than loot or sit high in a hazy crack-filled den or rape bodies of women the haters claim to own.

Alton Sterling youtube.com

Anger rises as tears flow, arms reach to heaven a blend of righteous indignation and sacred supplication, the preacher only pausing to catch her breath and renew the claim on anger that can be turned not inward but out in constructive action to change the world, undo old ways, stand together even with white folk who love, care, and weep in recognition of too long silence helping to create what is now the crucible of death upon death, blood, more blood flowing, urban rivers of mothers’ tears exposing like Jesus on the cross the ugliness of humanity mocking God’s creation, denying Her love that flows nonetheless with their tears. Today is the day cries the pastor, today is the day the people reply, we can do something to change this tortured world, we have in us the power, God’s power since conception in our mothers’ wombs, and it is time to use it to stop the violence, to get the guns off the streets, train the cops or remove them if they resist the simple lesson that dark skin is not the enemy but friend, neighbor, brother, sister, fellow child of the one and only God.

This has been going on a long time—whether we mean hate or resistance to hate—and the tide keeps turning for love, then falls back for hate, rolling to and fro, four hundred plus years of enslavement first of African folk and now the many descendants of slavers still chained to ugliness oozing from every pore, spittle splattering what God intends to be hope, while others use that hope to change direction, marching together across the lines for justice, mercy, love. We have had too much hate and not enough love, so the pastor calls out, Love Is Love, and the people respond in kind, in love for love, knowing, believing in their depths, that it is the only power to defeat hate. But this love must be more than sweet, this love must overturn tables too, sometimes interrupting regular worship, driving merchants of hate from sacred precincts, and back alleys and bayous, by tidal wave upon tidal wave of love rising, cleansing sin and the stain of sin from twisted white souls yearning to be free, and bringing precious divine power to the disinherited also yearning to be free. Freedom, oh freedom, freedom washing over me.